Posted
by
Soulskill
on Tuesday April 12, 2011 @12:25AM
from the retroactive-award-for-morrowind-please dept.

donniebaseball23 writes "Video game composers have been fighting for equal recognition at the Grammy Awards, and they've just taken another step in the right direction, as The Recording Academy has added video games to the descriptors of four awards, giving them equal billing with film and television. 'I think this could be viewed as a first step in the direction of video games getting their own category,' said the Recording Academy's Bill Freimuth."

Exactly. This is the crowd that gave Jethro Tull "Best Metal Album" and made Christopher Cross (yeah, I know, who?) their darling for one year. Who gives a flying frak at a rolling donut if they recognize gaming or not? But, hey, don't worry, be happy.

It's like animation fans who complained the Oscars had "ghettoized" them by creating a separate category for animated films. I kept asking them why they even cared what that circle jerk of pampered, Moon-sized egos did.

It's like animation fans who complained the Oscars had "ghettoized" them by creating a separate category for animated films. I kept asking them why they even cared what that circle jerk of pampered, Moon-sized egos did.

Like it or not, winning an Oscar turns into huge money for a film. Having a separate category for animated films has guaranteed that they'll never win Best Picture. Which goes a long way towards the idiot argument of "animated films aren't Real Cinema - when's the last time one won an Oscar?"

As little as I care, I'm glad they are included in an existing award, rather than put down at the kiddy table. Not expected one to *win* anytime soon, but at least they're included.

Cinematics, story and voice acting in your average videogame cannot come close to the equivalent in feature films. Games are event-driven, so they're choppy by nature. There are games like Metal Gear Solid that have great cut scenes, but many gamers have complained that it seems more like a movie than a game. That seems like it's always going to be an argument, because if people wanted to watch a movie they would do so. They wouldnt be playing games

Unless you're playing Lumines, Rez, DDR, Guitar Hero, or some other game whose gameplay revolves around music, the music in your game is going to be "choppy" to the extent that it stops playing one background music track and starts another. Smooth transitions won't be possible for several more years, at least until US Patent 5315057 [uspto.gov] expires at the end of 2014.

Smooth transitions won't be possible for several more years, at least until US Patent 5315057 [Assignee: LucasArts] expires at the end of 2014.

Bullshit. Just look up any old LucasArts iMUSE game

The patent I linked to is in fact the patent on iMUSE, owned by LucasArts. Please allow me to rephrase: Smooth transitions won't be possible for several more years in games not published by LucasArts until the end of 2014.

The Grammy's are the most notoriously meaningless awards in any field. They're owned by the studios, who use them as little more than PR tools. Every year they're won by the same predictable chart-toppers (indies need not apply), they reward popularity over talent (two words: "Milli Vanilli"), and no one takes them seriously. In fact, the Best New Artist Grammy has been jokingly called the "Kiss of Death" award, considering how most "artists" who win it end up becoming one hit wonders. The only reason anyone even watches that joke of an awards show is for the performances. And even those are pretty forgettable.

The Simpsons said it best. In an episode where Homer wins a Grammy, he takes one look at it, sees it's a Grammy and throws it out the window. Then, out the window, we hear a voice yelling "Hey, don't throw your trash out here!"

Amen. Testify!
Also, internet, weren't you supposed to save music by slaying the big labels? They may be slowly crumbling, but I can't remember a decade prior to last where mainstream music was so vapid, pointless, empty and engineered, with practically no redeeming qualities.

Warner Music Group has been distributing all Merge Records releases since 1993. Of course, you'll never learn that unless you dig into it, since they don't want to lose their indie cred by publicly being associated with a big studio. Read up on the Alternative Distribution Alliance [wikipedia.org] to see how Warner is secretly behind quite a few "indie" labels.

Every year they're won by the same predictable chart-toppers (indies need not apply)

Yeah, the timing of this move is extra suspicious, last year many indie artists were represented and nominated, including the huge surprise of Esperanza Spalding beating Justin Beiber for Best New Artist! (even if you hate him, everybody's heard of him, how many people have heard of her? not many is my guess).

Even if the Grammy's are diluted, they can help launch careers, just by exposing people to artists they might not be exposed to otherwise, another case in point, Nora Jones, a few years ago.

The Simpsons said it best. In an episode where Homer wins a Grammy, he takes one look at it, sees it's a Grammy and throws it out the window. Then, out the window, we hear a voice yelling "Hey, don't throw your trash out here!"

Actually, he takes it back to his hotel room where he tries to pawn it off as a tip substitute to his hotel attendant. The guy replies "Oh boy, an award statue! Oh, it's only a Grammy." and tosses it down the balcony. The rest of the quote is accurate.

Wow, you are deluded. Considering most major games these days use techniques that are used in film for cinematic sequences, stories that have much more depth than the hollywood reeltrash, and actors that are also big names in hollywood, well, maybe they are more deserving than films these days.

Aside from this, it's not the Grammys that need to respect games... it would be gamers needing to respect the grammys - which I doubt will happen.

I'm not sure what games you play that make them "choppy by nature", but

Bah! There is more "art" in games than there is to be found in movies or tv from Hollywood. Hollywood is great at the craft, but there are too many comities involved in the production of a typical main stream US movie or tv show and they manage to strangle any art out of the equation. There are of course some exceptions, like probably a few big name directors that can film their vision without too much meddling.

Games have had the chance to be more original, but as gaming becomes more prevalent, more of art

Video Games, as an art, are relatively young. Film has over a hundred years behind it, while games have merely forty [..] One can hardly expect an adolescent to have the same capacities as a fully grown adult.

Funny that you should compare video games to an adolescent. I've long thought that the industry's current obsession with seeing its own "maturity" and development in terms of comparing itself to the film industry as a sign of its underlying *immaturity*.

Right now the focus seems to be on pretentious, self-congratulatory attempts at cinema-mimicking narrative and emotional depth through self-consciously (*relatively*) big budget, cheesily-written sequences played out via horrid, unconvincing and mannequin-li

Wow, you are deluded. Considering most major games these days use techniques that are used in film for cinematic sequences, stories that have much more depth than the hollywood reeltrash, and actors that are also big names in hollywood, well, maybe they are more deserving than films these days.
Aside from this, it's not the Grammys that need to respect games... it would be gamers needing to respect the grammys - which I doubt will happen.
I'm not sure what games you play that make them "choppy by nature", but they aren't the games that I am playing.

Movies follow a linear progression of near constant dialogue. Game cinematics are broken up by uh....gameplay? I have seen a few games that move between cutscene and gameplay fluidly, but in many games this is a fault. One example being a boss battle. You kill your enemy with weapon A and the cutscene shows you doing so with weapon B OR you "kill" your enemy but in a cutscene they merely appear exhausted. This is choppy cinematics.

LOL and BLAH... Duuuude!... Games haven been 3D and Digital since at least 20 years now... Cinema has only recently catched up to video games in that regard...
get your facts updated man... and Metal Gear Solid is from 1998... so much fail...

I played the demo and it was just awful. The first problem was the horrible controls: no free-look, awkward swiping motions, and just terrible walking animations. I felt like I was awkwardly controlling a zombie. They really should have just licensed an engine that didn't suck, something like GTA IV.

The second, and even more fundamental problem, was having to separate your attention between control prompts on the screen and following the "movie". Trying to do both at the same time takes the enjoyment out of

Well I'm glad you played the demo and didn't like it from a brief encounter with a prostitute. The controls seem a little difficult at first but I got used to it pretty quickly. I also loved Indigo Prophecy. At one point in Heavy Rain I had my gun pointed at some guy who was losing his shit, saying in my head over and over "don't shoot him, don't shoot him, don't shoot him", the guy moved a little quickly and I accidentally shot him in panic. Its so immersive, its hard to fight back natural reactions. At on

Dreamfall, by Funcom, is very like a film. It is an adventure game that that progresses through puzzles and cutscenes and dialogue. It is also one of my favourite games. The story is a lot better than most films because most films these days are very generic. I played through Dreamfall 10 times because I enjoyed the story so much, even though I knew how to complete it.

Call of Duty games realistic? The first few were pretty good and somewhat realistic, but since CoD 4 its been one big game that traded story and realism for Michael Bay style of storytelling. Its the antithesis of realism, eschewing it for over-the-top explosions and characters doing ridiculous things. I slogged through the "story" mode of MW2 since I bought it to play online with friends and found myself rolling my eyes many times throughout. The CoD games now are just a bunch of big action scenes with

Cinematics, story and voice acting in your average videogame cannot come close to the equivalent in feature films. Games are event-driven, so they're choppy by nature. There are games like Metal Gear Solid that have great cut scenes, but many gamers have complained that it seems more like a movie than a game. That seems like it's always going to be an argument, because if people wanted to watch a movie they would do so. They wouldnt be playing games

On the other hand, check out this list:

1) No one makes any money but the distributors due to crooked accounting, and the distributors are being destroyed by "the internet".

2) Mass distributed content is formulaic and repetitive remakes of the same tired old ideas and frankly hasn't had anything new or fresh in many years.

3) 1% of the population is fanatic about it, the other 99% simply do not care.

4) Everyone in the biz thinks the world revolves around them, everyone outside the biz doesn't care at all abou

Finally!! This is great news because, seriously, music production in the latest blockbuster games is truly spectacular. Hear the latest Shogun 2: Total War soundtrack [totalwar.com] and it's frankly Hollywood on Windows!

The title song from Civilization 4 won a Grammy this year, becoming the first song from a video game to do so. I wonder if that had anything to do with their decision? As is often the case, you need really top-notch, undeniable talent to break down the barrier. Once it's broken, things get easier.

If I'm not mistaken, though, it won not because it was video game music, but because it was released on an actual album and was actually good.

IMHO "actually good" is the understatement of the year. I looked up that music on youtube after the grammy award and it FLOORED me. And not just one version but:
- The official music/video version (of just the baba yatu song)
- The PBS special on the first live performance (including the "coronation" intro, TWO videos, and a duet). This is the version

Why do gamers care about the Grammys?
As a gamer, I couldn't care less about *any* award show. The whole concept is some outdated idea from the 20th century when media companies had a monopoly on distribution, and used these shows to peddle their wares. The rise of the Internet has made them obsolete.

I don't have a problem with game awards shows that award all aspects of gaming and development. If it wouldn't appeal to a huge general audience, then broadcast it online to a niche audience (a well done one would still be huge) and treat it with respect and dignity. I'd pay a few bucks to watch that live online every year. Awards are part of acknowledging and rewarding bold new attempts, even if they're not commercially successful. They're important in every industry, frankly. Granted, some are more releva

Which is why they are doing this. By including games, they increase they increase the chance that a person who never watched the Grammy awards might watch. The Grammy awards are irrelevent to the gamer generation. This is just a way to make it a little less irrelevant.

For me the JRPGs would dominate any top 10 list of game soundtracks (spending a fortune licensing commercial music a la GTA doesn't count).Presumably, Western composers get paid peanuts to write in-game music, and the results are laughable - music nobody would ever choose to listen to outside the context of the game.

There's no reason for the Grammys to recognise Japanese artists such as Koichi Sugiyama and Nobuo Uematsu who are truly brilliant modern-day composers - I think computer game composers command a

I know almost nothing about the Giana Sisters except that i got a cool remix of its music via OCRemix [ocremix.org]. I guess it was some kind of Super Mario Bros knock-off that most people have never heard of? It kind of surprises me to see any kind of reference to the game show up, but it totally makes sense that if so it would be a discussion about game music:)

Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) - Now this is the kind of game/movie that I would love to see more of. The idea was simple: a game that plays like a movie but in which you still continuously(almost) PLAY the game. It had great story, great feeling to the scenes, sound was appropriate and cinematics blended in so naturally. It all worked out. In my opinion I would give that game an Oscar.
I think the story is the most important aspect of a game - as in any movie. Match it with good acting and keep the user pla